Below are some commonly asked questions, or questions we have compiled that we think you may find interesting in regards to Footiemap.com.

What is Footiemap.com?
Footiemap.com is a web site which maps the locations of top football club stadiums throughout the world. It contains extremely large and detailed maps, and is very comprehensive in its coverage. It currently covers the top football leagues for both men and women in an incredible 220 countries, with more in the works. In almost all countries, multiple leagues and seasons are covered. Footiemap.com is a labor of love, created and maintained by passionate football fans, for passionate football fans. This web site takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to maintain, but it's well worth it as long as other passionate football fans are able to enjoy it.

We believe Footiemap.com is the leading Internet resource for documenting and presenting this information, and is totally unique without equal. We have features not found anywhere else, including the ability to graphically compare seasons in countries where we have multiple seasons documented; the ability to navigate clubs on the maps from their inception (or maybe a few seasons ago) through other possible incarnations, all the way through their final or most recent season (this means we offer "franchise" support. Give it a try with one of the old defunct NASL teams, the Washington Darts, where you can use the club label controls to step through all of its seasons up until its final incarnation as the Minnesota Strikers); and the ability to powerfully search our extensive collection of football clubs, defunct football clubs, and famous stadiums.

There are now plenty of other web sites that map football club stadiums. What makes Footiemap.com so special?
When we started this web site, we didn't start it to copy any other site. We didn't see anyone else doing what we do, so we decided to take on this monstrous task. Now there are others out there attempting to do similar work. I wonder where they got the idea from? But being the first is not the reason why we are the best. Do we only show football club stadiums on maps? Certainly not. In fact, we offer many other features as mentioned above. Just sign up for a FREE membership, take some time to navigate around this web site, and we guarantee you won't see any other web site even coming close to the features we offer.

How do I use/navigate the web site?
It's pretty self-explanatory, but it's true that we display a LOT of detail and information, and we offer a lot of options to sort on or filter your views of information. On the main country maps, you'll see a "map key" in the extreme upper-left corner of the map (the dark gray box). Read over that information to get a feel for what elements are displayed on the maps, how to control them if you desire, how to limit your view, or how to jump directly to a specific club or cup winner or famous stadium (if available). Also, we have made at least an attempt at creating a video tutorial on YouTube, which is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow4qhXiLDjc. Sorry for the poor video quality. If anyone knows how to create better quality videos and is willing to help us with this, we would appreciate it and will reimburse you for your time.

Why did Footiemap.com implement registrations?
We had been planning this for a while. One reason for this is to see how many people are actively using the web site. Another reason is we want to transform into a community, allowing for different levels of access based on contributions to the web site.

We decided to eventually charge for access. We made this decision in order to cover our operating expenses. However, it is important to note that we fully intend to always allow *anyone* to freely access our web site, albeit with a limited view for non-members.

Recently we changed our membership scheme to move away from trial memberships and membership fees for standard access to the web site. This is not a reversal of course, rather it was a deliberate decision by us to give members better access and more choices on membership. And hey, who doesn't like FREE?

Now that Footiemap.com has registrations, do visitors have to be a member of the web site to view information?
No. However, if you visit the web site either as a member who isn't logged in or as a non-member, while you can view every country (and every season in each country) on the web site, you will only be able to view or search for clubs which are in the very top league covered in each country. For some countries we only cover the top league, so in these instances you won't be limited in your view. However, most countries have several leagues covered on the web site, and in these instances you'll only be able to view clubs in the top league.

Why should I sign up?
By signing up, you get several benefits. One, you get a FREE membership to the web site. Two, you have the ability to seamlessly upgrade your account to a Premier member or become a Footiemap Supporter (see below). Three, you will receive special offers from a merchandising site we've teamed up with. Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,.... you will have bragging rights with all your friends.

What is a Footiemap Supporter and why would I want to become one?
We've coined the term "Footiemap Supporter" to represent someone who has joined us to help in the massive effort to maintain all of the information presented by this web site. We specifically liked the idea of the word "supporter", as in the footballing sense it is used to describe a passionate football fan who (aptly, fanatically) follows their club. So similarly our Supporters are passionate about this web site and what we are doing. We have a very easy to use maintenance environment, where Supporters maintain and are responsible for their country/ies. They do notcode/script/program anything on the web site whatsoever. Rather, they work solely in the very easy to use and intuitive interface provided in our maintenance environment.

Many Supporters have told us that they really enjoy maintaining their countries, they like using our maintenance environment, and they have actually learned more about their favorite leagues and clubs by performing their work. Also, as long as they actively maintain their country/ies by keeping them updated throughout the seasons, they get continued FREE membership (at the Premier member level) with unlimited access to the entire web site, including our maintenance environment. In addition, they have the ability to participate in, contribute to, and see Beta enhancements before they are activated on the web site, and they get to view information in countries and seasons which are being worked on, but haven't yet been added to the web site.

If you are contemplating becoming a Footiemap Supporter, but you see that a country you may be interested in maintaining is already covered on the web site, not to worry. Let us know about your interest. Most Supporters are very willing to share their workload.

I've logged in, but now I see "You are not logged in" in the yellow rectangle. What gives?
Of course, the first thing to suspect is that you may have been automatically logged out due to inactivity. If you've logged in and you sit on a page without clicking anything or refreshing for over 15 minutes, the web site has been configured to log you out for security reasons.

Also, make sure that all addresses in your browser's address bar begin with http://www.footiemap.com. If you are visiting a page and your address bar begins with http://footiemap.com, that is another reason the web site will not recognize you are logged in. The web site's internal page linking is properly setup to always have the "www." in the address, but if you modify it or visit the web site via an external link which doesn't have the "www." in the address, this could explain your problem.

Additionally, we periodically see visitors coming to the web site via http://footballclubs.dyndns.org/, which is our old address and while we've continued to allow connections via this old address, if you attempt to connect to pages using this old address, it will not recognize that you are logged in.

How do I contact folks at Footiemap.com?
Always initially contact us by using the form on page http://www.footiemap.com/contact.php. If you attempt to email us directly, it is likely that your email will not reach us due to our aggresive spam blocking system. Once we engage in an email dialog with you, it is fine to continue to respond directly back to our emails.

Please understand that while we always do our best to respond to your inquiries as soon as possible, due to workload we cannot promise a timeframe of response.

If you use a spam blocking system, make sure to whitelist *@footiemap.com so you can receive our replies via email.

Why is the login page not secured?
We have looked at implementing a secure (SSL) login, but we don't feel it is necessary because we consciously do not ask you for any aggregated personally identifiable or sensitive information. We truly value your privacy and we've taken the firm decision not to ever ask you for anything sensitive in nature.